Environmentally responsible personal cleansing compositions with high performance

The present invention relates to various consumer, commercial and industrial products, including but not limited to personal cleansing compositions. This invention more particularly relates to a variety of personal cleansing products, including body wash, liquid hand soaps, and natural body washes and hand soaps.

Many consumers have a preference for products that are purported to have lesser adverse environmental impacts than other similar products. This preference is evidenced by the growth of the “organic” foods market, and by the labeling of products with markings such as “environmentally friendly” or “green.”

Apart from consumer preferences for environmentally friendly products, governments are increasingly regulating from an environmental standpoint the content of products. To ensure the widest distribution and acceptance of their products, manufacturers therefore have good reason to take into account a wide variety of differing environmental legal requirements.

The art has therefore begun to develop a number of different techniques for taking into account environmental issues when formulating products and acquiring their raw materials. In one approach the art has developed a public “grading system” that grades possible adverse environmental effects of products. Such systems are known to be associated with certain seals of approval by organizations having a perceived objective reputation regarding environmental matters.

To be commercially viable, a product should also meet certain cost and performance criteria, regardless of environmental attributes. Yet, available grading systems do not take into account a product\'s efficacy or the desirable attributes of a product. It is therefore desirable to provide a system for evaluating the environmental impact of chemical components, and thereby formulating products having improved environmental characteristics and performance attributes.

According to one exemplary embodiment of the invention, a personal cleansing composition is provided. The composition includes at least one primary surfactant having a natural and renewable resource origin, at least one secondary amphoteric and/or nonionic surfactant having a natural and renewable resource origin, at least one humectant having a natural and renewable resource origin, and at least one polymeric and/or quaternary conditioner having a natural and renewable resource origin. The composition has an optimum performance index (OPI) of at least about 5.450. The OPI is calculated by the formula: OPI=3÷((solids wt. %+Zein score)÷performance grade).

According to another exemplary embodiment of the invention, a method is provided for formulating a personal cleansing composition. To start, at least one primary surfactant, at least one secondary amphoteric and/or nonionic surfactant, at least one humectant, and at least one polymeric and/or quaternary conditioner are selected, each of these components having a natural and renewable resource origin. The primary and secondary surfactants are combined with the at least one humectant and the at least one conditioner in a final composition including the combined primary and secondary surfactants at less than about 14 wt. %, and further including the combined at least one humectant and at least one conditioner at less than 5.5 wt. %. After forming the final composition, an optimum performance index (OPI) is determined for the composition to ensure that the composition has an OPI of at least about 5.450, as calculated by the above formula.

The following description is of exemplary embodiments only and is not intended to limit the scope, applicability or configuration of the invention in any way. Rather, the following description provides a convenient illustration for implementing exemplary embodiments of the invention. Various changes to the described embodiments may be made in the function and relative amounts of components described without departing from the scope of the invention as set forth in the appended claims. Additionally, though described herein largely in the context of a personal cleansing products, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the inventive concepts described herein may likewise apply to other products as well.

Three factors are considered with respect to the efficacy and environmental impact of the particular products of the present invention, namely, a) the use of biodegradable and low toxicity ingredients that include or are generated from renewable resources, b) low carbon dioxide emissions from the product itself, and c) the performance or efficacy of the product. Heretofore, compositions tended to be created by sacrificing at least one of the foregoing three factors when another was enhanced. The present invention minimizes or eliminates such sacrifice, realizing optimal benefits of each factor.